The return of the lost wolves
by Devan Steele
Summary: At the red wedding, an old family return.


The return of the fallen wolves

The bedding ceremony had just begun. The men had roared out of the hall with the great John being the loudest and drunkest of all, dwarfing the bride. The women were pushing out Edmure laughing all the while, with the groom grinning from ear to ear.

The only people left in the hall were servents, the musicians, some Freys, king Robb and his body guards, and lady Catlyn. She could see them from her shadowy perch up in the top of the hall. No one had noticed her, but she had learnt how not to be noticed, it was how she was taught. She could also see the other man. He was standing by a door, for all purposes looking like a guard. No one questioned his purpose in being there, why should they, there were guards by all the doors.

Then the music changed, a funeral dirge, and she felt the change. To her the temperature had just dropped and she saw everything in slow motion. She saw half the band fumbling around under their chairs. She also saw the man by the door start to move. He started to unclasp his cloak and loosen the sword at his side. Another person in hall also felt the change. She heard Catlyn call out to Robb just as the arrows started to fly. Dacey Morment went down almost immediately, arrows protruding from her, Robb was also hit in the shoulder. With a roar to rival his father's, the little John threw a table over his fallen lord as five arrows caught him from his neck to his hip.

As the arrows flew from the balcony, the women in the shadows started to fire as well. She knocked and loosed as fast as she could, downing almost half the musicians before they even noticed they were dying. The man by the door also moved. He ran, with a grey shield held over his head. He ran to the fallen king and crouched, stopping the other arrows flying toward him.

Now the musicians started to fire wildly around the hall, trying to find where the hidden archer was, even while more of them fell. Walda Frey, who was still at his seat started to cry to them.

'Kill Stark! KILL STARK!'. All the others in the hall had run to the corners, except Catlyn. She was routed to the spot, watching the chaos that had descended upon them.

Now there was only one musician left. He dropped his crossbow and ran for the door. The archer didn't let him go, hitting him through the throat. Now there were other men running into the hall, with the flayed man of the dreadfort emblazon on their tunics and shields. The archer started to fire at them and some of them went down, but the others raised their shields before she could finish them. Then the man stood from in front of Robb and drew the long sword at his side.

The man, cricked his neck, to loosen it before the fight. Robb was on the ground, bleeding, but he would live. Assuming the man could stave off the men of the dreadfort. As he was reading himself for the fight, the leader of the dreadfort me lowered his hood.

'Leave Stark to us and you can go free' said Roose Bolton. His stare was hard and cold and the ice of the north, but the man did not waver. He stood there, a slight bend to his knee, shoulders square and sword readied. 'Very well, kill him,' Bolton said, and several of his men charged in. The man moved, he darted to the first of the soldiers, and before the man could swing the axe he held, his throat was slashed, with bold covering the floor. Another soldier fell before the first hit the ground. The other men started to retreat. Another soldier came forward, a veteran of the campaign, he swung his sword. The man caught it on his shield and stuck back. The veteran tried to block it with his thin wooden shield, but as the man's sword hit is, it cleaved through the shield, and then the veterans arm as well. As the veteran fell to the floor screaming, clutching what was left of his arm, the man stood tall, with his arms out, inviting the challenge of the four remaining men, including Bolton.

'Kill him, KILL HIM!' screamed Walda, still at his seat. The look on his face had changed, from annoyance to fear. Before his eyes he saw his plan failing, Robb wasn't dead, and his men had dropped like flies before the unknown archer. As Walda said this, Roose drew his sword and stepped forwards. His eyes stared with a grim determination at the man before the young wolf. The man saw him and all sense of over confidence fell from him, it would not help in this fight. Roose Bolton had been a tourney champion several times in his life, and the man knew this.

As Roose moved for his first strike, the arrows came out of the darkness at the edge of the hall. They felled the Bolton's last three men before he could strike. As their screams filled the hall, the man moved, he thrust with his blade and almost killed the lord with one stroke, but Bolton caught just before he was struck. With their swords swinging, they moved through the hall, the man pushing back Bolton with every step. The man could see the look on Boltons face throughout the fight. It changed from quite confidence to concentration to fear within seconds, as he was forced back.

The archer was moving quietly around the edge of the hall now. She was ready to fend off anyone who was still skulking in the darkness while the man dealt with Bolton. As she walked a man grabbed her ankle, a badly wounded dreadfort soldier. He had a knife in his hand and tried feebly to attack her, while his blood poured from the wound in his side, from one of her many arrows. The archer quickly pulled the short sword from the scabbard across her back and ended the man's life with a hard blow to the head. Then she turned back to the fight. The man still had the upper hand, but seemed to stumble, leaving a gap in his defence. Bolton saw this gap as well, and thrust forward, the tip of his sword racing toward the man's undefended flank. But evn as this was happening, the man spun on the ball of his toe as Bolton passed, and sliced with his sword, hitting Bolton on the back of the neck. The archer saw the blade as it bit, traveling the spine of the man as if it wasn't there. It travelled through his entire neck, with blood spurting from it all the while, until it came out at the front. For a split second, Bolton looked surprised, bewildered at what had just happened. Then his head fell to the ground and his body followed.

The man looked down at the body of Roose Bolton, a look of complete disgust and hatred on his face. He then walked back across the hall, the table that covered the king in the north. He pulled it of Robb and said a simple sentence.

'You're safe'. His voice was rough and had a thick northern accent. He sounded like one of the many enlisted men in the army of the north. Even after being hit with an arrow deep in the shoulder, Robb's first thoughts were of his men.

'My army..' he said quietly, weak from the loss of blood. By now the Archer had walked over and answered

'The men of the dreadfort and the twins are attacking your men, but the blackfish is commanding them.' She had the same accent as the man, but her voice was softer, not like one of a soldier.

The people in the hall could now hear the noise from outside. The horns of the northern armies were blowing, and sounds of fighting were loud. However, the number of northern horns seemed to be growing, whereas the sounds of the riverlands trumpets were becoming quieter and more desperate.

'Your army is safe, your grace. They will fight another day,' the man said, just as Robb passed out.

The next day dawned, and the men of the north had prevailed, but with many lost. The tents arranged around the twins were burnt, with corpses inside them and lying around them.

The man and the archer had been called before the king. They arrived outside the chamber of the king, and the guards allowed them to pass. As they entered, they saw Robb, shirtless with a maester bandaging the wound to his shoulder, with lady Catlyn in a corner, looking over him with red eyes, and tears on her cheeks. Even though the king looked weak, he rose from the edge of the bed and smiled at them.

'So you are the people who saved my life,' he said, as the archer curtsied, and the man bowed.

'Yes mi' lord' they answered, almost in unison.

'What are your names, and please raise your heads, you have no need to bow here,' the king said as he took them both by the soulders and raised them both back up.

'Jene sire,' said the archer. She raised her head to the king. Here red hair fell messily over her face, and she brushed it aside, to reveal an angular face with freckles across her nose. Her eyes were small, but seemed to be looking in all directions at one, as though she could see everything. Then the man spoke,

'Torren, your grace' he said. His face was larger. Where Jene was this and wiry, he was stocky, built to weather a storm. Is eyes were a grey colour that looked as hard as the steel of the sword that was at his side. Robbs eyes were drawn to the sword at Torren's side. It was not ornate, but looked old all the same.

'May I see your sword, Torren' asked Robb. Torren drew it and gave it to the king. Robb looked it over for a while and then his looked quizzically up at the two people before him.

'This sword is made of valerian steel, how did you come across it?' asked Robb. Torren and Jene looked at each other. They both knew that if there plan had worked, then the truth would have to come out eventually.

Jene was the first to answer. 'It is the sword of our family' she answered simply.

'And what family is that,' Asked Robb

'The Greystark family', answered Torren. Silence filled the gap between the king and the two. It hung there as Robb tried to understand what he had heard. Then lady Catlyn stepped forward and broke it.

'The Greystarks are dead,' she said. 'They were all killed centuries ago.'

'Explain.' Robb said the one word, and it filled the room. The single word resonated the power that he could wield as the king.

Both Torren and Jene looked at the ground, and Jene began to explain.

'when the Greystarks rose against the Starks with the dreadfort, three men of the family went to war. The lord of the wolf's den, and two of his sons. They were all men, and all of them were killed in the following battles. When the King in the north took the fort, he found the lady of the house, and a daughter there. But there was also a son. He was very young, little more than a baby. The king couldn't condemn him for the failings of his father.'

'The mother and the daughter were married off to minor knights. The son, Roderik, was the last remaining family, and the king had to exile him. He arrange for the Storm King to find a home for him. And eventually he ended up in the household of a knight and his wife, as there adopted child. The knight raised him to be a knight, and when he was knighted he gave him the sword of his father, that sword.' She motioned to the sword in Robb's hand. Torren then continued the story.

'The Starks used to have two dragon steel swords, Ice and fire. This one was given to the first of the Greystarks. Roderick used this sword for his life, then passed it to his son and, and told him of the history of his family, what happened to them, and how he was saved by the mercy of a king. This continued all the way down to our father. He was a man at arms to a lord a green apple Fosway, and followed king Robert in his rebellion. He fought at the battle of the red fork, and saw Raegar Targeryan fall to Roberts hammer. He then joined the army of your father Ned, until the end of the war, and followed it back to the north. He bought a small farm near Winterfell, married our mother and fathered us, and told us the same story every father had told their children all the way down from Roderik. He taught us how to fight and we both joined your army.' He finished and the silence filled the room again.

'that is not the story that I heard as a child,' said Robb. His jaw was clenched and he looked as if he was about to call for the guards outside the doors.

'But I have heard it,' said Catlyn. As the story had been told, she had moved to stand next to her son. Robb turned to her with a quizzical look on his face. 'It was one of the stories your father told me many years ago. He told me when you were a baby, and were all in the Gods wood together.' She then looked to the people who had saved her son, 'Thank you. Why did you save him. The Starks killed you family, and banished the last remaining member of it to the storm lands?'

'We saved him because his ancestor saved our family by letting the last live.' answered Jene. 'Part of the story is that we owe all our lives to that one act of mercy, and we will be forever grateful of that.'

'Well, now I say that your debt is done. You saved my life, and with it the lives of my army. However there is another question I have of you,' he said as he handed the sword back to Torren. 'How did you know of Walda Frey's plan to kill me?'

'Last night we were drinking with a number of Frey men. One of them must have been privy to the plan as he said that the men of the north would be having a bad wedding,' answered Torren. 'As we were heading into the hall to try and protect you, the Blackfish came out, and we told him about it, and he managed to marshal the men of River run before it all started. We the hid in the hall, ready to protect you.'

'And a good job that you did. As a reward, I will knight you both, and give you men to command.' As Robb said this he moved to the solar and looked out.

'We have a long war ahead, and I need hero's to fight in it. Do you accept, Greystark?'

'Yes mi' lord' the Greystarks answered.

The lost wolves had returned.


End file.
